LAFF 08: Spaced Invasion USA – A Conversation With Edgar Wright

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Wright reflects on the series that preceded Shaun.

By Todd Gilchrist

On Tuesday, June 24, 2008, Edgar Wright appeared at the Los Angeles Film Festival for a special event celebrating the DVD release of the British TV series Spaced. While the Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director didn't discuss details about his upcoming projects like Ant Man, he fielded questions from the capacity crowd and talked about the show at length.

After an introduction by South Park creator Matt Stone, who also moderated the event, Wright announced the episodes he chose to show, confessing he elected to screen three episodes instead of just two. These episodes were "Art" and "Epiphanies" from Series One and "Gone" from Series Two. Wright included a brief introduction of all of the characters from Episode 1, "Beginnings."

Stone reappeared after screening the episodes and sat down at the front of the theater to ask Wright a few questions about the show, including how he originally got involved. "I made a very low budget film when I was 20," Wright explained. "But I was really lucky in terms of [Little Britain] was the first show I did, and then the second show I did had Simon [Pegg] and Jess [Hynes] on it, and it was a big ensemble piece for a show called Asylum. Simon and Jess seemed to have a lot of their scenes together… but the people who produced it said Simon and Jess should have their own show. So because I directed them, I was in a really good position to read a first draft of the script."

"So I was attached right from the very start, so that was kind of great to be really involved in that process."

When Matt Stone finished asking his own questions, he offered the crowd a chance to ask questions. Responding to a question whether a third series could or would have been possible, Wright said that the end result of the episodes sometimes felt less satisfying than the time and effort he put into them, even if it was only quantitatively. "I was just aware of how I worked like eighteen months on the second series and it was gone in seven weeks, and it just felt so ephemeral."

"Now it's different," he continued. "DVD has become, especially for TV comedy, box sets kind of become the finished article, but back then it just felt like dissipating."

Wright pooh-poohed the idea of a Spaced movie ever making it to the screen. "I think there's something about the fact that it's in London, the fact that there are references to American films, I think part of the inherent charm of it is that it's in a suburb of the UK and people are acting it out. There's something kind of aspirational about that… and there's kind of no point in doing a Spaced film because I think the fantasy within it is that the characters are living out pop culture and kind of interpreting it as their real life. It's fun but it's kind of ambitious for a TV program. Put it on the big screen and it just kind of loses it."

After 30 minutes of questions and answers, Wright showed the audience a three-minute piece that will appear on the forthcoming DVD that, as he describes, encapsulates the entire series. "This is a really nice little clip montage that was done for the DVD by a DJ called 'The Spaced Jam.' It basically covers the entire 14-episodes in three minutes." After the lights came back up, Wright, Stone and the crowd adjourned to the lobby, and the stars took a few moments to speak to fans.

As for Ant-Man, Wright was mum: "It's been written. Next question?"

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